Isaiah DeQuincey Newman Papers

DeQuincey Newman (1911-1985), Methodist pastor, civil rights activist, and entrepreneur, led a remarkable life. He was a leading figure in the Civil Rights movement in South Carolina. He helped organize the Orangeburg branch of the NAACP in 1943, helped found the Progressive Democratic Party, and served the South Carolina NAACP as state field director from 1960 to 1969. From 1972 to 1974, he served as executive assistant to the Director of the S.C. Department of Social Services. From 1974 to 1981, he was Director of the Governor’s Rural Regional Coordination Demonstration Project. The confidant of many of South Carolina’s most distinguished leaders in government, in 1983, at age 72, he joined their ranks with his election to the South Carolina Senate. He became the first African American to serve in that body since Reconstruction. Due to ill health, he resigned from the Senate in July of 1985 and passed away shortly thereafter.

At his death, his friend, U.S. Senator “Fritz” Hollings said of Newman, “The Reverend Newman’s life is testimony to the transformation this country has undergone in the last thirty years. He not only was there to pry open the door of opportunity, he walked through it. In the years when equal justice under the law was only a dream for people of his race, the Reverend Newman was on the front line fighting the battles that dismantled the structure of segregation and discrimination, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Roy Wilkins.” Newman’s protégé, Ike Williams, who succeeded him as field director of the NAACP, said, “He stuck with a steady course in the movement,” and remembered Newman having said, “The problems of civil rights will never be solved on one side of the table. The black community and the white community must come together in mutual trust.” [The State, 22 October 1985]

Born on April 17, 1911, in Clyde Township, Darlington County, to the Rev. Meloncy C. and Charlotte [Lottie] Elizabeth Morris Newman, Newman was the fifth of their sixteen children. [In different biographical notes, the father’s name is spelled differently, including Mellon and Melondy.] He was educated in the Williamsburg County public schools and attended Claflin College. In 1931 he was admitted to ministry by the United Methodist Church and served as a pastor in both Georgia and South Carolina. In 1934, Newman received his BA degree from Clark College of Atlanta.

On April 27, 1937, Newman married Anne Pauline Hinton. They had one child, Morris DeQuincey Newman, now Emily Morris DeQuincey Newman. About that same year, he graduated from the Gammon Theological Seminary of Atlanta, and then returned to South Carolina for good.

From 1950 to 1956 he served as District Superintendent of the Sumter District United Methodist Church. In 1959, the Newmans moved to Columbia, and from 1960 to 1969, Newman served the NAACP as state field director. In 1969, he accompanied Senator Fritz Hollings on Hollings’ now famous “Hunger Tours,” showing Hollings areas of abject poverty. Newman was a delegate to the 1968, 1972, and 1980 National Democratic Conventions, and a member of Governor-elect John West’s Inaugural Committee, 1970.

Newman served as executive assistant to R. Archie Ellis, Director of the state department of Social Services, from 1972 to 1974. In 1974, he was a field coordinator for Bryan Dorn’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign. From 1974 to 1981, Newman served as director of the Rural Regional Coordination Demonstration Project, later called Division of Rural Development, in the office of the Governor. In 1977, Newman was considered for appointment as Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He received the Order of the Palmetto in 1979 and, in 1982, was named the Rural Citizen of the Year by the National Institute on Social Work in Rural Areas.

Long a close advisor to leaders in South Carolina government, in October, 1983, Newman won a special election to represent Senate District 19 following Alex Sanders’ resignation to become a judge. He won a run-off victory in the Democratic primary over Christopher King and in the general election defeated Republican John Camp. At the age of 72, Newman became the first African American in the Senate since 1888. He was re-elected in 1984 but resigned in ill health that summer, and passed away in October, 1985.

In addition to his work in the ministry and as a leader in the civil rights movement, Newman was a true entrepreneur. Among his successes was creating Midcom, Inc., operator of WDPN FM of Columbia, which he served as President. He also founded Statewide Homes Foundation, a non-profit low income housing sponsor, the Senior Citizens Service Center, the Coastal Plains Rural Development Corporation, and Ebony Development Corporation, a consortium of building contractors. Newman also was founder and first minister of Francis Burns United Methodist Church in Columbia.